Raggie rage. Was I in the wrong?

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ricky_s

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On Saturday afternoon I popped out of Chichester Marina for a potter round to Emsworth just to blow the cobwebs off a bit.

It was windy on Saturday and the harbour was full of sailboats making some good speed, we were doing around 4-5 knots.

Just before East Head I could hear someone shouting "Get the **** out of my way" over and over, I looked to port and saw a smail sailboat, probably doing about 15-20 knots just about to crash into me!

As he went by he shouted some more abuse, I can't remember what, and I shouted a few choice words back. Didn't even see him coming.

I kept seeing him going back and forth across the harbour and kept an eye on him and he thanked me every time I slowed for him after that.

Did I do something wrong? I would have thought I was the stand on vessel as he came at me from the port side.

Put the wind up SWMBO and made me want to ram the sod at first!
 
Yeah but he's a sailboat and power gives way to sail under these circumstances. Unless you were navigating in a narrow channel and could only navigate in that channel which would be difficult to argue in your case, or were constrained in some other way such as ability to manouvre or draught in which case you should have had the appropriate shapes hoisted. You should have given way IMHO
 
You should have;

1) Spotted him approaching
2) Got out of his way

Oh hang on ... now you've added more detail we may need to use Hawkeye!
 
I would have thought I was the stand on vessel as he came at me from the port side.
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I should add he was coming from behind as well, doesn't this make him the overtaking vessel?
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You don't seem very sure of the rules yourself!

I recommend you familiarise yourself with http://www.mcga.gov.uk/c4mca/msn_1781-2.pdf

As earlybird says approaching from more than 22.5 deg abaft the beam would have made him the overtaking, vessel and therefore the giveway vessel. Otherwise, as a vessel under sail, he would have been the stand on vessel and you the giveway vessel. Port or starboard irrelevant.
 
I have sypathy and you were probably in the right...but from the small but fast dinghy perspective.

Sometimes you do have a blind panic situation in a small but fast dinghy and you do lose control, effectively you can't steer where you like, in a gust the boat either falls over or to keep it upright and in some sort of control you have to change course by 20 degrees or more, all unplanned of course. I had one incident (almost) as I was happily overtaking a small rib, a gust hit us and we could have blown over and landed the mast on him or accelareted over his stern, so I asked him politely but firmly if he could apply some more throttle to allow us room to manouvre. There wasn't much time to explain as you can't de power a fast dinghy when sailing downwind so a gust simply means you go from 10 knots to 20+ and the boat veers of downwind whilst you try to wrestle control of the beast. We call it fun most of the time ;) and this is what it looks like.
Brisbane03.jpg
 
Neil_Y said:
I have sypathy and you were probably in the right...but from the small but fast dinghy perspective.

Sometimes you do have a blind panic situation in a small but fast dinghy and you do lose control, effectively you can't steer where you like, in a gust the boat either falls over or to keep it upright and in some sort of control you have to change course by 20 degrees or more, all unplanned of course. I had one incident (almost) as I was happily overtaking a small rib, a gust hit us and we could have blown over and landed the mast on him or accelareted over his stern, so I asked him politely but firmly if he could apply some more throttle to allow us room to manouvre. There wasn't much time to explain as you can't de power a fast dinghy when sailing downwind so a gust simply means you go from 10 knots to 20+ and the boat veers of downwind whilst you try to wrestle control of the beast. We call it fun most of the time ;) and this is what it looks like.
Brisbane03.jpg
Click to expand...

Thank you for taking the time to give me this answer.

What you say makes sense and I will try to keep a better eye out in the future, I would have given him more room had I seen him.
 
Neil_Y said:
I have sypathy and you were probably in the right...but from the small but fast dinghy perspective.

Sometimes you do have a blind panic situation in a small but fast dinghy and you do lose control, effectively you can't steer where you like, in a gust the boat either falls over or to keep it upright and in some sort of control you have to change course by 20 degrees or more, all unplanned of course. I had one incident (almost) as I was happily overtaking a small rib, a gust hit us and we could have blown over and landed the mast on him or accelareted over his stern, so I asked him politely but firmly if he could apply some more throttle to allow us room to manouvre. There wasn't much time to explain as you can't de power a fast dinghy when sailing downwind so a gust simply means you go from 10 knots to 20+ and the boat veers of downwind whilst you try to wrestle control of the beast. We call it fun most of the time ;) and this is what it looks like.
Brisbane03.jpg
Click to expand...

Why are those two hanging off the side like that? Has the guy at the helm farted?
 
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